When today's vehicle owners (i.e., owners of automobiles, motorcycles, boats, farm equipment, etc.) need their vehicles maintained (e.g., repaired, tuned up, etc.), many take their vehicles to repair shops that specialize in their types of vehicles. Once at a repair shop, a mechanic typically connects a vehicular diagnostic tool (i.e., a “scan tool”) to a vehicle to obtain a preliminary assessment of the problems associated therewith. Based on this assessment, the mechanic performs the prescribed maintenance and, subsequently, re-tests the vehicle with the diagnostic tool to confirm that the problem has been resolved.
Pursuant to the above-mentioned diagnostic testing, repair and confirmation of the adequacy of the repair, a summary of the work performed is printed on a sheet of paper that either is the customer's invoice itself or is attached to the invoice. After the customer pays for the work that has been performed, a copy of the summary is given to the customer to take home and file away in his or her records.
Unfortunately, many vehicle owners have difficulty keeping track of maintenance records over time when they are printed on paper. As such, it is not always clear to a mechanic seeing a vehicle for the first time what kind of repairs the vehicle has previously undergone. Also, even if paper copies of the maintenance records are properly stored by the vehicle's owner and supplied to a mechanic when requested, sorting through the paper records is not generally a particularly efficient use of the mechanic's time.